Asian Drama

Shomuni 2 is a sequel from Shomuni, a popular comedic drama serial. It continues where it left off when the female employees from GA-2, deemed "the graveyard of all female employees" for its inane daily job routines of changing light bulbs, used toilet rolls and organising flower appreciation nights, saved the company in the final episode of Shomuni. However, Manpan Corporation has changed. The multi-national company is now run in a totalitarian fashion. Closed circuit cameras are placed in every nook and cranny of the company to monitor the daily routines of employees. Even the basins in the toilets are not spared (though, obviously, the cubicles are) from scrutiny. This is a result of the Personnel Department, led by the evil Terasaki and Nonomura, who are (again) seeking to find a reason to save up on company budget.

Shomuni 2013 sees a total change in the members of Shomuni, with the exception of Esumi Makiko who will reprise her role of the feisty Tsuboi Chinatsu. It has been 10 years since Shomuni had been dissolved in Manpan Corporation, and the department members have all gone on into retirement. Tsuboi Chinatsu's whereabouts is known to nobody. Due to the long economic downturn suffered by Japanese companies, restructuring is a common occurrence nowadays. Manpan is no different from the rest. Maruyama Shiori is an Olympic gold-medal hopeful in the pole vault event. Manpan had recruited as part of their PR advertising, but due to severe costs-cutting measures, the track and field club in Manpan was dissolved, and Shiori is deemed to have no value to the company anymore. In order to make Shiori, who doesn't even have the skills to be a telephone operator, leave on her own accord, the company started tweeting bad things about her. Poor Shiori is now an outcast in the company and no one totally dares to be seen with her at all. No one, except for the team of OL, made up of Minami Madoka, Abe Reiko, Kojima Masuko and Fukuda Masuyo, who appear before her one by one. One day, Shiori comes across a lady who seemed to be running away from someone. The next day, she sees the same lady again at the company. The lady is none other than the legendary Tsuboi Chinatsu! Has Chinatsu rejoined the company again? What is the objective of the company and also Chinatsu? -- by Fuji TV

Tsuboi Chinatsu, the most hated GA-2 by the Personnel Department, has resigned from Manpan Corporation. During the wedding reception, she asks four of the five female GA-2 employees (all of them except Tsukahara Sawako) whether they wished to have a little bet on whether Tsukahara Sawako would lose her virginity by the end of the month (30th of June). At the same time, Sawako is made the new "de facto" leader of GA-2, and she struggles to fill the boots left behind by Chinatsu.

A romantic comedy about women in their 30's For everyone who still remembers "Suteki na Kataomoi," "Tokyo Love Story," "101st Proposal," prepare yourselves for even more of those same touching moments again. Breaking the tradition of the main character for a Monday night drama being a woman in her 20's, Esumi Makiko stars as Kyoko Asaoka, a 32-year-old heart surgeon working at a hospital in Tokyo. Men tend to shy away from the tall, well-educated and well-paid Kyoko because they see her as a woman that can do things on her own. The truth of the matter is that Kyoko is just unlucky in love. She is also old-fashioned, and wants to fall in love just like anyone else, but has a hard time showing her real self to men.

Kasahara Natsuki is a thirty year-old hairdresser from Tokyo who comes to Sapporo to relax and enjoy a vacation during the 2000 New Year's Eve festival/party. Unfortunately, she gets locked out of her room and meets Kaede Soichirou, a 25 year-old local newspaper photographer. His kind nature impresses her, but they don't exchange personal information and write it off as a chance meeting. Like all women her age, Natsuki's worried about finding shiawase (lifelong happiness) by marrying and starting a family. When she goes to a matchmaking meeting, the friend of her would-be beau is none other than Soichirou. After that meeting takes a turn for the worst, Soichirou follows her out and cheers her up by taking her up for a ride in his single-engine plane. They part company once more, still not knowing each other's names, and write it off as a chance meeting. Arriving home, Natsuki's roommate Haruko announces that her brother Soichirou will be staying with them in their house, after being transferred to Tokyo's newspaper.

Based on the same-titled novel, the drama is set in the year 1964, the year the Olympics were held in Tokyo. A nation trying to rebuild its economy post world war II, Japan was eager to show the world what it had to offer. Amidst all the excitement and enthusiasm, two fires had broken out consecutively; at the private residence of the Chief of Police, Suga Shuichiro, and then at the Nakano Police Academy. However, both incidents were hushed up, and even Detective Ochiai Masao, from Division One MPD (Metropolitan Police Department) had to find out about it from his fellow colleague. Ochiai was puzzled as to why no investigations were being carried out and it soon came to light that prior to the first fire at the Chief's home, a threatening letter had been sent to the MPD. In view of the upcoming Olympics, everyone at the MPD were feeling jittery over the letter and the arson, and thus a team was set up to ensure the safety of the public during the event. Ochiai and his team mates were to carry out the investigation secretly. Information came to Ochiai, that some 25 tubes of dynamite were stolen from a gunpowder factory. While questioning the owner, Ochiai was introduced to Shimazaki Kunio, a poor student from Akita prefecture, attending Tokyo University and working part-time there. Suspecting him of the crime, Ochiai started digging around into Shimazaki's life and was surprised to find out that his own sister, Yumi, was actually dating Shimazaki!

Esumi's character Tamami is the "bull doctor" of the show's title, which comes from the word "bulldozer." Ignoring any opposition from the people around her, she uses any means necessary to determine the truth behind the deaths of the bodies she examines. Because of her personality, she is constantly at odds with both Ishihara and Inagaki's characters.

Some time between the Meiji and Taisho period... A mother and son walk through heavy rain. The son, YOKI, sees strange, iridescent creatures float from the mountainside and then disappear. He does not yet know such creatures are called "Mushi" and can not be seen by ordinary men. Suddenly, there is a landslide and Yoki's mother is swallowed by the flood. A Mushishi woman named NUI finds the child, who miraculously survived, and takes him home with her...

Some years later, we meet Yoki again as an adult. Having lost his memory in an incident he can not recall, he is now called "GINKO." He is a "Mushishi," one who studies the Mushi he could see as a child and protects ordinary men from the illnesses that they inflict. He travels alone through the thick mountain snow, looking for a night's lodging. We see that his hair is white like the snow and one of his eyes is now missing...

Ginko makes his way to a house where a young woman named TANYU has fallen ill. Born to a family with a strong connection to Mushi, Tanyu records the ancient stories of the Mushi onto scrolls. She fell ill after she heard a tale from a blind Mushishi woman. The woman told her about how she had fought off a powerful Mushi called "Tokoyami," which lived at the bottom of a pond, and about an eyeless fish which lived at the bottom of the Tokoyami called "Ginko." Her extended exposure to the pond turned her hair white and took her eyes...

In the basement library of Tanyu's house, Ginko reads the scroll containing the tale of the blind Mushishi woman. It sounds strangely familiar to him, as if he has heard the story before... the story of a boy named "Yoki," the sole survivor of a landslide...

A young woman's husband apparently commits suicide without warning or reason, leaving behind his wife and infant. Yumiko remarries and moves from Osaka to a small fishing village, yet continues to search for meaning in a lonely world.